By Justine Harman, Elle
Over the course of a month, an ELLE editor learns that being professional-grade skinny is harder than it looks—way harder.
Adriana Lima Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2013. Photo: Getty Images
Step one: The consultation
“I think you should buy a scale.” Those were the hard-hitting words of nutritionist-to-the-svelte Dr. Charles Passler, a New York-based professional, whose custom designed diet plan helped to peel nearly 50 pounds off Adriana Lima after she gave birth to daughter Sienna last September, and who I’d been consulting with for the past four weeks. “So you can hold yourself accountable.”
Some background: holding myself accountable isn’t exactly my strong suit. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve slugged down a sugary Skinny Vanilla latte just because it was cold outside, ordered another round of sauvignon blanc after I’d already closed my tab, or eaten my husband’s bolognese in lieu of my own sensible plate of greens. And every time I indulge a compulsion, I swear up and down it’s the last time. And for a week or so it is. Until it isn’t.
It’s this lifestyle that has led me, a 5’3″, 29-year-old with a pretty decent rack, to my resting weight of 123 pounds. In my adult life, I don’t believe I’ve ever weighed less than 113 pounds (my wedding, a mere three months ago) or more than 130 (right after senior year of college when my roommate told me that, yes, I looked fat).
Looking and feeling skinny has always been a brass ring for me. And for as long as I can remember, I’ve always been aware of my size as it compares to others. When I was younger, that awareness presided over how much my thighs spread across the tarmac at the pool; as an adult, it evolved into dissecting how big my arms look compared to those of my friends in Facebook pics. It’s a haunting and all-consuming state of consciousness that governs decisions ranging from what to wear to whether or not I should sit front row at SoulCycle. It’s so exhausting and upsetting that you might wonder why I don’t just lose the 10 pounds that long ago affixed themselves to my thighs and butt and move on with my life, right? Well, I’d counter your unsolicited suggestion with a different argument: losing and gaining those ten pounds is my life. Contrary to how it may look, my lifestyle isn’t one of decadent dinners, grueling boxing sessions, and a sometimes-distended, sometimes-concave tummy, it’s one of constant negotiations and justifications, self-loathing and self-celebration, all woven into a psyche that renders me, at any given moment, somewhere between manically happy and catatonically despondent.
Read the full article by Justine Harman from Elle.
